


your name is like a prayer

by itsthebat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Smut, but like not really explicit, i dont really know its not that important, its an AU, remus is pinning so HARD, theres a war, they both are disaster gays, they just love each other so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-19 11:34:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20656565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsthebat/pseuds/itsthebat
Summary: They should go back. They should hide better. They should run. But Remus can’t bring himself to move. He presses his free hand to Sirius’s waist. Sirius shivers and tenses. Remus’s eyes go down to Sirius’s lips all over again.“Remus,” Sirius mumbles. He leans on ever so slightly.





	your name is like a prayer

Remus is breathless as he runs through the streets of Sussex.

He should be scared, frightened, fearing for his life, but instead he feels alive. After weeks of plotting, of looking at maps and discussing strategies, escaping from the bad guys is the most exciting thing he’s done in a month. He holds on tighter to Sirius’s hand and wills his legs to move faster, to work with him and not against him—after all, Remus has never been much a fan of sports.

Small clouds of air form in front of him every time he exhales a breath. At first, he complained about the cold, whined that it was too cold to spy on someone, but now he’s glad that it’s winter; he doesn’t think he could keep up if it was summer and the sun was melting his bones. He wonders as a bullet grazes at his skin if Sirius is breathing as hard as he is. He’s wondered about a lot of things concerning Sirius lately, really.

There’s something invigorating about running missions with Sirius. Sirius, always so jovial and happy about everything, turns into another person completely when he’s spying on people. He grows dark and quiet, always concentrated in the task ahead. An hour ago, when they were perched on the roof of one of the many buildings in the city, Remus became mesmerized by Sirius’s face—and he didn’t even notice, as concentrated as he was in looking through the binoculars.

It might be wrong, Remus thinks—it certainly is—but after years of doing this, years of plotting and spying and being someone he wasn’t meant to be, he thinks he deserves a break. So he looks at Sirius when Sirius isn’t looking; Remus stares at his jawline and wonders what it’d be like to trace a finger over his skin, to look at Sirius in the eyes and tell him how he really, truly feels. Remus isn’t sure himself, but right now, as he tries to keep up and try not to get killed, he’s starting to get an idea.

Maybe it’s his hormones that have gone crazy with the war that is waging. He wasn’t all that interested in kissing and having sex when he was sixteen, maybe his body is catching up now. Remus wants to laugh, but Sirius pulls from him before he can and they don’t stop running.

Sirius’s hand is warm in Remus’s. He wishes, for a fleeting moment, that their fingers were intertwined. That they weren’t in Sussex, that they were on the beach and holding hands like a couple. He’s been wishing too much, Remus thinks, but he reckons he has the right to; after all, when all he sees around him are papers and spies and death, he ought to have something to dream of.

Sometimes he feels like a teenage boy again, sixteen and without a care in the world. He didn’t think much about kissing and having sex, but he thought about it a little, and when it’s dark and he’s alone in his room, Remus closes his eyes and pretends he’s still sixteen and making out with the most handsome boy in school. Sometimes, he slips his hand down his pajama pants and pretends that everything is as it used to be.

It’s tiresome, really, and Remus wishes he’d said no when he was asked if he’d like to help his country. But James and Peter and Sirius were so eager, so ready to die for a piece of land that Remus couldn’t find it in himself to say no. Even Lily begged to be let in, even if she was a girl and it was prohibited for them to join. He should be ashamed but, after all these years, he still isn’t. If he could go back in the past, he’d say no. And he’d force everyone else to say no, too.

There are moments like this, when he’s running with Sirius and bullets are coming from every direction that Remus wants to give up. He wants to hold up his arms in surrender and spill every secret that he knows. He wants someone to win the war, he doesn’t even care who anymore. He’d ask for forgiveness before telling the enemy everything he’s been told, and maybe he’d ask forgiveness for Sirius, too, because he’s too committed to the cause to ask himself.

But this is treason, and Remus knows that the enemy wouldn’t let them leave, no matter how many secrets Remus tells them. Whose idea was it to start a war, exactly? Who thought that it would be a good idea? Remus remembers the letter that told them about Peter’s betrayal, how they almost lost James and Lily and their son. Sometimes, when it’s dark and Remus is alone in his room, too tired to bring himself to care, he’ll cry until he falls asleep.

Now, Sirius curses as he leads them through streets and alleys. Remus spots a flower shop crumbling down, probably because of a bomb. There’s a bakery, a nursing house, light through windows that are turned off as soon as they hear bullets. Remus wonders, tiredly, if he’ll know a time when there isn’t war all around him.

Suddenly, Sirius presses him against a wall. Remus grunts at the same time Sirius presses a sweaty palm to his mouth, silencing him. Their hands are still linked. Sirius has his eyes squeezed shut, hard lines forming around them, mouth pulled taut. Remus looks around him only to find a dark alley. He hears the enemy cursing in a foreign language when they realize they’ve lost Sirius and Remus.

For a moment, Remus thinks, morbidly, what would happen if he screams? Would the enemy kill them on the spot? Or would they wait until after they interrogate them? For all his thoughts, Remus doesn’t think he’d tell anything. He’s been trained hard and painfully. He could bear broken fingers, cut limbs, almost drowning. He would do anything, to protect Sirius. And he knows that, if he talks, Sirius would never forgive him.

Footsteps slowly fade in the background, voices get lost in the wind. Sirius’s chest heaves against Remus’s, they are so close. The tips of their shoes are touching, hands still locked, one of them against Remus’s mouth. Sirius doesn’t open his eyes. Is he afraid? Remus remembers when they were seventeen and alone in their shared room—James was with Lily, and Peter was probably sharing information with the enemy—and Sirius came to his bed, sat right in front of him. Remus left the book he was reading aside and stared, waited.

Sirius, for all his bad attitude, long hair and black nails, was still a child at heart; so were the rest of them. The war had made them grow up too fast, too badly. Sirius fidgeted with the duvet for a couple of minutes before bursting into tears. Remus was too stunned, for he had never seen Sirius cry like this—he’d cried when James had told him, in a fit of rage, that he hated him when they were in second year; he’d cried when he broke his elbow after falling off the tree he was climbing; he’d cried when he told Peter, James, Lily, and Remus, drunk as fuck, that his parents, his whole family, hated him. But he’d never cried like this.

Usually, it was James the one who knew how to comfort him. Remus just stood by the door in case something turned out wrong and he had to flee. He always wanted to whisper kind words, to press his lips against Sirius’s tears and make the pain go away, but he never knew how. Why had Sirius come to him, then?

He spoke after a minute of silent crying, “My family is on their side.”

Remus understood, then. And he was bad at comforting crying people, always had been, so he just drew his knees to his chest and hugged his legs, stood by as Sirius cried his soul out, inconsolable. He had the eyes of a dove caught in the streetlights, aware that it’s going to die but unable to do anything to stop it. He looks like this know, eyes screwed shut, his hands crushing Remus’s.

There’s a shot. Remus closes his eyes instinctively and winces, and he feels Sirius doing the same. His chest heaves quickly, air coming in and out rapidly while Remus is trying to hold it in for fear of the enemy discovering their hideout. When Remus opens his eyes, Sirius is staring right back at him.

Sometimes Remus forgets that he’s the taller one. When he’s speaking with Sirius on the phone and then sees him a day after or when he opens his eyes after having closed them, he startles when he realizes Sirius has to crane his neck up to look him in the eye, when Remus realizes he has to look down, a little bit. Sirius doesn’t have the manners of a short person. He has the voice of a titan, the leadership of a monster teen feet tall, whereas Remus, the same person who cries in the dark, the same person who touches himself and pretends he’s somebody else, the same person who has thoughts about surrendering so many times, should be a gnome.

Sirius squeezes his hand. Remus doesn’t tear his eyes away from Sirius’s lips; when did his gaze drop to them? He doesn’t know, but he doesn’t want to look anywhere else. Sirius squeezes his hand again and whispers, “We should go.”

Remus once caught him kissing with a boy when they were fifteen. It was well past midnight, well past curfew, but Remus had woken up so thirsty he could drink the whole ocean. So he went to the kitchens to fetch a bottle of water when he heard something he wasn’t supposed to hear. It came from the bathroom of the second floor, to the right of the hallway he was now crossing. He paused, stood still and listened. It sounded like moaning, but not like in the movies Peter liked to watch—it sounded closer, more real.

Quietly, Remus dragged his feet to the door of the bathroom. He didn’t want to open it because he knew that if he did, the sound would stop. So Remus dropped to his knees when he was in front of the door; he closed one eye and with the other he looked through the keyhole.

And there he was, his long, ebony hair unmistakable. Remus didn’t know who the other boy was, but Sirius had him pressed against the wall. They weren’t wearing shirts, and Remus could see that while one of Sirius’s hands was tangled in the boy’s hair, the other was inside his pants.

He wanted to look away, but couldn’t. He told himself that this was supposed to be private, that Remus was supposed to go fetch water and go back to sleep. But how could he, now? He’d never seen something like this, because in the movies Peter watched it was always a boy and a girl, and Remus didn’t want to suggest otherwise in fear his friends would think it weird.

Sirius never mentioned liking boys but, from the sound he was making, it was obvious he did. And Remus, confused and questioning, thought he did, too. He glanced down at his crotch and flushed in embarrassment. He thought of slipping a hand down his pants there, but thought against it immediately. He got up and rushed back to his room, water forgotten, even if his throat was drier than it had ever been. He touched himself in the same bathroom the next day, covered his mouth when he felt he was close to coming and had an orgasm that wasn’t quite his.

“Remus,” Sirius whispers. Remus feels his breath against his face, the smell of the whiskey they drank yesterday hypnotizing. He looks up at Sirius’s eyes, pupils blown wide. He repeats, “Remus.”

They should go back. They should hide better. They should run. But Remus can’t bring himself to move. He presses his free hand to Sirius’s waist. Sirius shivers and tenses. Remus’s eyes go down to Sirius’s lips all over again.

“_Remus_,” Sirius mumbles. He leans on ever so slightly.

The first time Remus slept with someone, he was seventeen and a half. It wasn’t a boy from school, but from the village; his name was Simon, and he had freckles all over his body. Remus met him when he tripped and would’ve broken his neck if it weren’t for Simon, whose hands caught him by the waist and steadied him. They became friends quickly, and every time they were allowed to go to the village, Remus would visit him.

Simon lived alone, since his father had gone to fight in the war and his mother had succumbed to illness. He owned a small farm, made a living out of selling cheese and milk from his cows and sheep. Remus liked him instantly, liked his melodic voice and easy manners. He liked the way he held his hand when they were talking in the living room and the way his lips felt against Remus’s when they kissed for the first time in Simon’s room.

They agreed to keep it a secret. Remus laughed when James complained that he was ditching them in favor of his new friend. Sirius stopped talking to him for some time. Peter grimaced. Remus forgot about them as soon as Simon opened the door and then opened his arms.

One day they were in the barn when Simon pushed Remus playfully and Remus, caught off guard, fell into a pile of hay. Simon laughed uncontrollably in a way that made Remus’s stomach flutter, and so he caught him by the wrist and pulled him down. Simon kissed like he lived: slowly, without a care in the world. He bit lightly at Remus’s lower lip and slipped in tongue when Remus least expected it. He dropped wet kisses to Remus’s neck, made bruises into his hips where no one would see them. Simon liked to bite Remus’s earlobe and whisper sweet things into his ear.

But that day he wasn’t as sweet as he was harsh—but not in a bad way. They’d never talked about sex, never even mentioned it, but Remus could feel him through the layers of clothes, hard and _there_. Simon had told him that Remus was the first person he’d ever been with, and this thought made Remus brave enough to press a hand against Simon’s cock. He gasped. Remus smiled into Simon’s shoulder.

He moaned just like Sirius in that bathroom. Remus slipped his hand into Simon’s pants, into his underwear, and wrapped his hand against Simon’s hardness. Simon moaned louder. “Fuck,” he said. Remus began to stroke. Simon did the same thing, and Remus came first.

“_Remus_,” Sirius repeats. He looks utterly devastated. “Let’s go.”

Remus opens his mouth, but Sirius presses a hand against his lips. For a moment, Remus thinks of licking his palm but then thinks against it. He doesn’t want to move. He doesn’t want to let Sirius go again. But what other choice do they have? They can’t hide forever.

He sighs. “Let’s go,” he echoes.

They start running again, but this time they are slower and quieter. Sirius stops in every corner, makes sure they are alone and then they are gone again. Remus holds on tight to Sirius’s hand, afraid that it’s going to disappear at any moment. Remus doesn’t recognize Sussex at night, but he knows that they aren’t going to the quarters. He’s too afraid to ask Sirius where he’s leading them; he’s too excited.

Remus repeats, in his brain, the image of Sirius calling his name in the alley. It sounded like a prayer, something only meant for the bedroom. Remus should be frightened, scared, but he’s hoping that where they are going has a private bathroom because he feels heat in between his legs, he feels turned on, and every time he closes his eyes, even for a second, the image of Sirius looking at him in the alley comes again to him and it makes everything worse.

After an hour of running, Sirius knocks on a door. “Password,” a voice says. Sirius speaks in a language Remus doesn’t know. He hears the locks of the door being unlocked, and then they are in.

Sirius looks behind at him, at their intertwined hands, and smirks. “It’s a safe house,” he says. Remus smiles back, though it’s halfhearted.

They sleep in the same room, but the bathroom _is_ private. A woman with pitch-black hair questions them—questions only their side would know the answer to, questions meant to tell them apart from the enemy—before she lets them go. You’re the only ones here tonight, she tells them, but every room except for one is used to storage, so you’ll have to sleep on the same bed. Sirius shrugs. Remus copies the gesture. The woman eyes them carefully before deciding she has more important things to do.

Sirius showers first. Remus knows that Sirius sings when he showers, but now he’s quiet, and Remus only hears the water rushing down. He’s restless, can’t stop pacing the room, thinking things he’s not supposed to think. When Sirius comes out of the bathroom, it’s all Remus can do not to run inside. He locks the door and, quickly, gets out of his clothes.

He turns on the water, hot hot hot and presses his forearm to the cold tiles. “Fuck,” he curses before wrapping a hand around his dick. He should be concerned, maybe, that running around Sussex escaping death turns him on this much, but he’s too occupied thinking other things to care. And he should be thinking about Simon and his wandering hands, his loud screams and his long tongue, but that’s not what Remus is thinking about.

It was the Christmas of 1978, and Sirius and Remus were left alone in the room. James had gone to spend his Christmas at Lily’s house, while Peter had come back home. It was late, probably two or three in the morning, and Remus couldn’t get the image of Sirius’s petite hands opening the present Remus had given him out of his head. It could have been because he was a horny teenage boy, maybe because it’d been five months since he slept with anybody—Simon didn’t work out in the end—but he just couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Remus thrashed in the bed, put the covers up and down, threw the duvet to the floor and then got up to put it back. It was hot under the covers, which didn’t help at all. His hand hovered over his stomach, undecided. He peaked at Sirius and saw his chest come up and down, heard him snore softly. But the fact that he was asleep didn’t help at all. Why couldn’t the beds have curtains? Remus cursed under his breath and thought, fuck it.

He gasps and has to cover his mouth with his free hand. God. He feels weak on the knees, but doesn’t stop.

The thing about jerking off is, that once Remus starts, he can’t control his train of thought. Once when he was sixteen he started thinking about a teacher’s rough voice and ended up cringing because he was thinking of the time he saw James’s dad come out of the shower without a towel. He can’t help it. And he can’t stop it. This time, however, he already knew what he was going to think about even before he started.

Sirius, all over him. Remus closed his eyes and bit his lip hard as to not make any sound. Remus imagined Sirius’s hands caressing his cheeks, his neck, his collarbone. Sirius’s hands touching his bare stomach, wandering further, under his boxers. He moaned softly and Remus thought, he’s going to wake up but he couldn’t stop his hand from moving. He immersed himself in his fantasies—he wasn’t sure when exactly did he start thinking of Sirius like this—maybe when he caught him and the other boy in the bathroom—but Remus was beyond the point of caring.

He was imagining Sirius’s mouth opening, his tongue licking just the tip, when a raspy voice said, “Remus?”

Remus stilled. Fuck. _Fuck_. In the present, he moans loud even with his hand inside his mouth. In the past, he didn’t utter a word. Sirius said, “What are you doing?”

His words were still slurred from the whiskey they’d drunk, coming slowly and suggestive. It was all Remus could do to stop himself from moving his hand again. Sirius didn’t stop asking questions. “Are you—are you jerking off?”

Remus cursed under his breath. But Sirius wasn’t the only drunk person inside this room, and so he said, “Yeah.” And then, when Sirius stilled and didn’t say anything else, Remus added, “Wanna come?”

He would have hit himself, maybe thrown himself out of the window, but Sirius chuckled and the next thing Remus knew was that Sirius was urging him to leave him some space in the bed. Remus, with his hand still wrapped around his cock, moved to the left. Sirius chuckled again and threw the covers over him.

“It’s hot,” he said, matter-of-factly. And then he turned to one side, facing Remus. He gulped. Sirius grinned, propping himself on one elbow. Remus was drunk, but he wasn’t as drunk as Sirius, who checked him out from feet to head. And suddenly, Sirius blurted out, “You are hot.”

Remus sputtered, not saying a single coherent word. Sirius laughed. “Moony,” he whispered. Remus felt his cock throb. “I really, really want to touch you.”

This time, Remus opened his mouth and words came out of it, “Then do it.”

Sirius grinned big and obliged. He touched Remus’s hand, first, then put it away. He wrapped his hand around Remus’s dick and started stroking fast. And Remus thought he was going to combust, because he had never felt like this, not with Simon or with any other boy, not with himself. He felt Sirius hard against his leg, and he moaned loudly, so very loud, when Sirius moved to straddle him. It felt other-worldly.

“Jesus,” Sirius moaned, too. And it was then that Remus noticed that Sirius’s free hand was inside his own pants. Sirius caught him looking at it and laughed, throwing his head back. “This is a sight to remember.”

Remus didn’t like to be under, so he pushed himself upwards and kissed Sirius in the neck, startling him. He pressed his lips against his carotid, his thumb against his pulse-point. Sirius’s hand moved faster on both of them when Remus’s tongue grazed his skin. When he started sucking, Sirius cursed and squeezed Remus’s cock. Remus screamed his name. He felt like he was going to explode, and so he did a few seconds later.

Sirius, smiling slyly, got his hand out of Remus’s pants and, still sticky with his cum, pressed it against Remus’s face. He scowled and Sirius laughed. Fuck, he thought, Sirius’s laugh turned him on even more, even now. He licked one of Sirius’s fingers and tasted himself.

“I didn’t know you were so dirty, Remus.”

“I didn’t know you talked so much.”

Sirius laughed, breathy and with harsh breaths. He let his head fall to Remus’s shoulder, still moaning. Remus, copying what he’d done, slipped his hand into Sirius’s pants and helped him get off. When he was done, Sirius whispered, “We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t wanna.”

And so they hadn’t. Remus gasps when he comes and slides down the tiles, hot water scalding him.

The room is dark except from the lamp in Sirius’s side of the bed. He’s ready to sleep, shirtless and probably pantless, though Remus can’t be sure because the duvet is covering him. Sirius checks him out when he comes in, only the tower covering him. Sirius raises an eyebrow and Remus shrugs. “Forgot my clothes.”

“Ah.”

He feels Sirius’s cold eyes on him as he changes into his boxers. Remus didn’t bring any pajamas and they don’t have any here, so this will have to make do, as uncomfortable as it is. Even that time, they were still wearing clothes. Now, when Remus gets into the bed, it feels more private, dirtier. He closes his eyes in surrender. Maybe he’ll have to take another trip to the bathroom.

Laying on his side, back to Sirius, Remus tries to close his eyes and sleep. He doesn’t want to remember Sirius’s eyes in the alley, boring holes into him, and he doesn’t want to remember his touch either. He hears him breathing hard behind him, but pays it no mind. Remus wants nothing more than to touch him, to feel him whole, but this is a war and there is no time to pleasure in wars.

Or so he thought.

Sirius touches his bare arm, startling him. Remus opens his eyes and cocks his head to look at him. “What is it?”

It’s late, too late. Remus wants to think that the look on Sirius’s face means that he’s tired, even if deep down he knows it is not. Sirius doesn’t open his mouth, doesn’t utter a word, just stares at Remus. It makes him self-conscious. It’s been three years since Christmas of 1978, but not a day has passed where Remus didn’t think about Sirius beneath him, of the taste of his fingers and his pulse under his thumb.

He turns over himself and faces Sirius. The man doesn’t say anything. Remus has run out of memories to think of. He props himself up on his elbows and looks unabashed at Sirius’s abs, his pectorals and hard nipples. Remus wants to swallow him whole. Maybe, he thinks, there are times only meant for pleasure.

“Fuck,” he gasps. He moves to straddle Sirius. And the bastard, fingers dug into Remus’s thighs, grins. He grins so big it makes Remus hard again. “Do you even know,” Remus begins, hands over Sirius’s body, “what you do to me?”

“I have an idea,” Sirius answers. And then he kisses Remus. They never kissed, not in the lips, and Remus doesn’t have time to play, not now. He opens his mouth and adds tongue; Sirius chuckles as he does so. Remus grinds against him, and he notices Sirius is hard too. Which emboldens him. God, he feels invincible.

He presses their bodies impossibly closer, feels Sirius all over. He breaks the kiss only to press his lips against Sirius’s collarbone a moment later, wet kisses trailing a path that goes to Sirius’s nipples, to his abs, to his hips. Remus thinks he’s going to burst when he kisses the jut of Sirius’s hips and he arches them, moaning Remus’s name.

And it’s all he’s ever wanted, he thinks. He hooks his fingers on the elastic band of Sirius’s boxers, already wet. He wants to eat him alive, but he also wants him to beg for it.

“Remus,” he moans, still arching his hips. One of his hands comes down to grab at Remus’s hair, while the other is grabbing the sheets of the bed hard. He’s rocking his hips, his dick hard against Remus’s pectorals. “Fuck, Moony.”

Remus feels his own cock throb, impatient. He says, “What is it?”

“Please,” he answers, voice slurred. Remus starts to drag down his boxers. Sirius moves more. “God, just—just do it already.”

Remus grins. “Do what?”

Sirius groans when Remus grazes a hand against his cock. “Suck my dick,” he finishes. 

Remus does. And it’s a miracle Sirius hasn’t come already. But he licks the tip of it, then swallows it whole. Sirius pulls from Remus’s hair while he bites his other hand to stop himself from screaming. With one hand he holds Sirius down by the hips, and with the other Remus touches himself, fast strokes that feel like heaven right now. Every time Sirius speaks his name Remus feels himself closer to the edge, closer to coming, closer to—

This time he’s not the first to cum, and grinning he swallows all of Sirius’s fluids. Sirius is looking down at him, at the hand inside his underwear, and Remus stares right back, imagines doing things he’s never done to anyone. He moans loudly, not caring to put a hand inside his mouth or maybe stopping it. He doesn’t care if the woman from before hears him, doesn’t care if all Sussex does. Sirius’s pupils are blown wide, and when Remus comes, he screams louder still.

He falls back down on Sirius, body hard underneath him. Sirius tangles his hands on Remus’s hair, carding his fingers through it. Remus can feel Sirius getting hard again. He opens his mouth to say something, but Sirius beats him to it. “Moony.”

“Yes?”

“We have to talk about it,” he says. Remus stills, but then Sirius is rocking his hips against Remus’s, his hands gone from his hair and now on his waist. “Not now,” Sirius adds, “but later. I don’t want to pretend to forget again.”

Ah, Remus thinks. He smiles and grabs Sirius’s waist too, moving his hips at the same rhythm. They kiss again, maybe with too much tongue and clacking their teeth too many times, but Remus is happy. He’s been waiting for this his whole life. He doesn’t think he could’ve gone without it much further.

The next morning they have to leave, run again. They hold hands and play hide and seek with the enemy. The war continues. But at night, when it seems like the war has stopped, they still, too, and whisper love words into each other’s ears. 

**Author's Note:**

> so this is it!!! it's the first time i've ever written smut so i hope it's not too bad. reviews and kudos are appreciated!! talk to me i love it!!!


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